Who would you say are the most vulnerable people in the world?
Children? Women?
Guess who typically holds the responsibility for walking miles daily to fetch water when there is no source available?
Children and women.
When our cycling team shares about how clean water helps communities become more educated, we talk about how children can go to school instead of having to spend their days walking to and from a water source. Women are also free to earn income or take care of their homes.
But a few nights ago, I was looking at my schedule for our upcoming rides and was struck with a thought that terrified me to the core.
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I’ve sparsely mentioned on my blog that I was sexually abused by a pastor when I was in high school. As I went over our route, I realized something.
On this trip, I would be within miles from where the person who abused me is living.
Knowing this instantly caused me anxiety. What if I saw him at a gas station or a grocery store? How would I react? Flashbacks from years past rushed back. I felt like a vulnerable sixteen year old again.
It’s interesting how Blood:Water Mission and this particular part of my past have woven their stories together. I didn’t expect that discovering my proximity to my abuser would have such an impact on the way I thought about clean water, women, and children.
I mean, if I was a vulnerable, lower-middle class sixteen year old girl in America…what happens to vulnerable children without the protection I had?
So, I researched.
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It didn’t take long to discover how women and children seeking a simple place to use the restroom are often targets of sexual crime. I found this right away on the UN’s website:
1.3 billion (NOTE: BILLION!!!) women and girls in developing countries are doing without access to private, safe and sanitary toilets. In some cultural settings where basic sanitation is lacking, women and girls have to rise before dawn, making their way in the darkness to fields, railroad tracks and roadsides to defecate in the open, knowing they may risk rape or other violence in the process.
That doesn’t include the risks women and children who go alone to find clean water source may face, either. The World Health Organization says that many women are forced to have sex in order to receive clean water. Certain men will claim territory over areas of water and use that “power” over the women and children who need that water in order to survive.
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Even though I haven’t been able to ride every single mile on this trip, it was my goal to get a century (100 miles) ride in and Thursday, July 8, is my last chance since it’s the last century ride on the trip.
At first, attempting it was more of a personal accomplishment. I’ve ridden 80 miles before — why not finally ride the milestone of a century? But after all of these random bits and pieces from my own story and the tragic statistics from millions of others, I decided to change the focus of that ride.
I’m riding this century for the women and children who have lost had taken away from them their innocence, their hope, their sense of who they are for the unjust reason of not having clean water or a private place to use the restroom.
And I’m going to make an ask of you.
Would you help sponsor me for this ride? We raised over $5200 on my 30th birthday that went directly to Blood:Water mission and I’m going to ask you to donate again.
Can you pledge to donate $1 for every mile I ride on Thursday? Or even $0.25 for every mile? Even $.01 for every mile will give an African clean water for an entire year — every penny counts. Every penny goes to Blood:Water Mission.
The route has us going 104 miles from Little Rock, AR to Forrest City, AR, and I’ll take a before and after picture of my cycling computer and post it as soon as I have internet again so you can see how many miles I finished.
The lack of access to clean water is such a solvable problem, penny by penny. And with clean water, maybe we can help prevent innocent women and children from being taken advantage of by allowing them to stay in safe places.
Because nobody — nobody — should have to have such a beautiful part of their life stolen from them just so they can survive and provide for their families.
If you can pledge, please leave a comment and I’ll let you know how it goes as soon as I can. Or, if you’d like to simply make a donation, you can click here.